Air Belgium seeks insolvency protection

Air Belgium, which is currently operating one daily round-trip from Heathrow to Chicago on behalf of British Airways, has placed itself into an insolvency protection process.

The good news is that the British Airways charter flights should continue. The Air Belgium rescue plan would see it end all commercial passenger flights (currently South Africa and Mauritius) to focus on ‘wet lease’ chartering and cargo flights.

(A ‘wet lease’ is where an airline rents an aircraft, pilots and crew from another carrier, which is what Air Belgium is currently doing for British Airways.)

Air Belgium never fully recovered from the pandemic, and in March 2023 ended commercial flights to the Caribbean and French West Indies. This freed up an A330neo to operate the Chicago route for British Airways and left it with just the African routes.

A Belgian court will now decide if the company can receive legal protection from its creditors whilst it begins negotiations to reduce its debt burden.

Commercial passengers flights will operate until 3rd October. Flights booked for a later date will be cancelled but a refund is not certain – money would be ‘reimbursed as a matter of priority in the scope of the proceedings.’

At the moment it appears that anyone booked on the Air Belgium-operated BA flights to Chicago should not be too concerned. Indeed, if Air Belgium turns into a pure ‘wet lease’ operator we may see it operating more British Airways routes in the future whilst BA waits for its long delayed Boeing 77X fleet to be delivered.